Tanzania to send eight athletes to Beijing

Tuesday, 29 July 2008

DAR ES SALAAM - Commonwealth marathon champion Samson Ramadhan will head an eight-member Tanzanian athletics squad to next month's Beijing Olympics, the national Olympic Committee (TOC) announced on Monday.

Other members include 2005 world half marathon champion Fabiano Joseph and the only woman in the team, Zakia Mrisho, who will run the 5,000m.

Ramadhan, 28, set a personal best 2:08:01 during the 2003 London marathon.

Joseph, who also took a bronze medal in the 10,000m in Melbourne in 2006, will double the 5,000m and 10,000m, said TOC secretary general Filbert Bayi.

Bayi and Suleiman Nyambui are the only Tanzanian athletes to win an Olympic medal with silvers in the 3,000m and 5,000m respectively at the 1980 Moscow Games which were boycotted by many African countries